The House passed a $638 billion defense bill. Your thoughts?

Comments

MarkHighwater

Humm?....$960 billion farm bill for 10 years and $638 billion for one year, to make more orphans in the middle east....it should be called the "offense" bill and not "defense"...should have listened to Ike! ! !

animal

We need a strong military, for our protection, and also good place for young men and women to get training and discipline. Better than being on the streets and on welfare or unemployment. But we need to stop getting involved in everyone elses business around the world! Mind our own business, protect our borders and put Americans first and foremost!

anonym

Defense spending is in Article 1 section 8 of the Constitution. Subsidizing farming is not, when the Constitution was written, farming was one of the main businesses.

If you think defense spending is too high here are some numbers for you to digest. Education 13%, Defense 14%, Pensions 18%, Healthcare 24%, General Government 3%, Protection 4%, Welfare 5 %, Transportation 5%, Interest 5%, other spending 9%. This is how much the Government spends on each program, it seem PPACA, aka Obamacare has a budget 10% higher than the so called bloated defense budget, which is only 1% higher than Education. I for one prefer the government budget money for something they are required to do constitutionally.

Since the First Barbary War 1801 – 1805 when President Jefferson sent the Navy to Tripoli, the United States has been the policemen of the world.

locomotive

centerfield

Obviously, hypocrite dusty, you have no point if you have to shout to enhance your non comments. Calm down and get a life. Just because your minority party is getting smaller and more radical does not mean that you can scream your points across....

MattRothchild

MattRothchild

We hear Conservative voices all the time complaining about subsidizing others' or government undertaking socialist projects.

Yet they are (traditionally, becoming less true I've noticed) the first in line demanding more money be spent on defense/military.

A considerable amount of that money goes straight out of the United States and into maintaining a military presence in many other countries around the world. In short, we are subsidizing those countries' defense/military capabilities with our own rather than demanding they pay their own way.

And since we are subsidizing these other countries' military capabilities, that frees them up to use their own money to undertake increasingly socialistic programs in their own countries.

By this connection, you could say that American military presence around the globe encourages other countries to undertake programs that destroy the initiative, psyche and character of their own people.

MattRothchild

And with that in mind, where the h3ll are the libs? Aren't these the kinds of atrocities you people always claim are the result of foreign military occupation and imperialism? You should be all over this just as much as the Right!